AIBU to ask what parents on similar incomes give their children at university?

[MagnoliaPetals80]

I am looking for some advice from those who are helping their child financially at university. My DD is about to finish her A'Levels but had planned a gap year to work and save some money for uni. This week she has announced that she wants to go this year and the uni has approved this. She is determined to go whatever we say.

DH and I believed that we would have a year to save some money for her and that she would also have saved some money of her own and we are now trying to understand how it's going to work. She has picked an expensive city in the South East and is bad with money.

Our joint income is £65k or so and it looks to me like that means that she will qualify for the minimum loan amount. But we don't have lots of spare money. I know there are many variables but I'm interested in how much support you give your child (if you are able to support them at all financially). We think we could stretch to £200 a month but it looks like the loan might not even fully cover her rent. What's the norm these days if you are in a comparable situation? As I say, I know there are variables, I'm only asking if you are on a similar income.

Thank you in advance :-)

Yes, so glad those days are over. Rent was eye watering.

i feel that if £413 a month is the expected amount then we will have to find it. Thanks again to everyone who has offered their thoughts x

our son went through clearing and we had 4 weeks notice that he was going to uni. We earn a similar amount to you and his loan covers 3 months out of 4 every time his loan comes through. We save £150 a month and pay the 4th month. He has had to get a job because we can’t afford to pay for his food. We also have other children too. It’s hard.

We have seen two children through university (one to go in a few years) but they didn't go to the most expensive university, dealt well with money and had jobs.

You give what you can spare I guess.

We give both of our dc £500 a month. Luckily, this is the only year they’ve overlapped at uni and ds will be finished in the summer. However, we only give that when they’re away. During the holidays they earn their own money!

I understand the panic. We are in a similar position but we have another year and we still
won’t be able to afford it.

check with her chosen uni if there are scholarships and bursaries and get her applying for them asap. There’s also a grants and trust directory that has loads of charitable trusts who offer support for the most random things (green eyes, six toes and born in Basildon type random) the uni should be able
to link you to those too.

part time job is a must and ensure she knows how to get a chicken to last a flat of four for three weeks.

it’s not impossible and thousands of students manage. Thankfully going out five nights a week clubbing isn’t the done thing among Gen Z so that’s a bit cheaper too.

We're on a similar income daughter goes next year. It's tight, we've said she can't go to London or Bristol as too expensive and are looking at cheaper unis. DD has a part time job in hospitality and we've said we will expect her to match our contribution. The three month summer is amble time to earn a few thousand on minimum wage.
I was hoping the government would reform this, as uni students numbers decline due to money but no signs of this yet unfortunately

850 a month inc rent and living. Then on top phone, music subscription, travel home and top ups shops. Should say there is no maintenance loan.

I think you are being unfair. Parents with higher incomes are supposed to top up the loan amount. It has been this way for years and it is your responsibility to make sure you have the funds to cover the shortfall in the maintenance loan, which can come to 5/6 K a year. It is a horrendous system and like others have said, I believe they should all get a full loan, but they don’t and it falls back on the parents. Many of us knew this was coming and put money aside for years, but there are other parents who ignore this, and like you, put it back on the student or refuse to pay so the young person misses out. This is on you.

Hey @Mahalepirose our HH income is similar to yours. My youngest DC graduates this year, my DD was at uni a few years ago. She got a bigger loan than DS (bc our income has gone up a bit and the thresholds haven't) and it went further so I subbed her a weekly sum to support but she paid rent from her loan (cheap city).

Now student rents have gone up, lots of unis are only building en-suite accomm as it's what students want, so it's £££. Both of my DC had halls rooms in their first years costing less than £5k but you have to look out for these and lots of unis only have more expensive rooms. It is a real issue. How much is the accommodation your DD is looking at?

To answer your question, for the last two years I have paid DS's rent and he lives off the loan and his PT retail job. His rent this year is about £570 pcm which is lower than some but still I will be glad when he graduates.

I see you have other DC. This may allow a larger loan. I also see your DD has spent her savings. Hmm. Where is she planning to go? That might need reconsidering.

To other PPs - student rents can vary; DD was at Leicester where halls are available for less than £100 pw and 40 weeks tenancy; but lots of places have ensuite or catered rooms and cost a lot more. Lboro where DS is has some cheaper SC halls and also some catered ones that cost £8-9k. All of Nottingham's on-campus accomm is catered so costs about that. Some of Bristol's SC accomm is more than £10k. It's something to look at.

The min loan is less than £5k. @SoLaidBackImHorizontal no, £420 pm will not cover accomm in most places, let alone money for food or fun. I agree with @JulietteHasAGun that it is crapola. CoL has gone up so much – DS in his first year (5 years ago, extended masters) was getting an Aldi basket for about £30 for his weekly food (budgeting hard – apples not grapes, cheapest chicken, frozen berries, that kind of thing) but two years later it was more than £45.

This. The whole reason she doesn’t get the full loan is down to your income, OP. The government, rightly or wrongly, expects parents to fill that gap between the loan that the student receives and the full loan.

We are on a similar wage to you - I have a savings pot for university, because both of my DCs want to do long courses and will be there at the same time. I am budgeting £500 per month per child, but it will probably be more by the time they are in their final years. I don’t know if they will be able to work during term time, but I expect them to get work over the holidays and save their wages.
It is really important to me that they don’t limit their choices due to financial reasons (ie rule out certain cities because they are expensive).
We probably won’t be able to give them house deposits, so I want to be able to support their education in order for them to earn well.

No you will not “have to find it”. She wants to go, she’s burnt through £2k already and now isn’t planning a gap year to give herself a cushion. She needs to work out how’s she going to finance this - I definitely wouldn’t be borrowing against my house or cutting back for myself out of your earned income.

as a benchmark my DS is at university in a northern city and his living expenses are £10k a year but he is VERY frugal.

Thank you but we haven’t ignored it, we have had some financial bad luck over the past 5 years that has swallowed up our savings. Given that that had happened, we thought the gap year would buy us some time to save some more for university.

You will see upthread that I have said that if the government expectation is a £413 top up then we will find it somehow. I am still allowed to be cross that dd has blown the £2000 she saved last summer when she knew our situation

The renters rights act is causing issues with private student housing too. Students used to have to sign up to 12 months whether they lived there during the summer or not. Now they can give notice and leave in May and the property could sit empty until September so landlords are now trying to get 12 months rent in a 9 month period. I suspect it will have a social impact to - some tenants want to stay on and others want to leave.

I haven’t joined this thread to justify what I happily choose to give my Dd to live off. But for your information she’s disabled. Before she became disabled she did in fact work as a barista while studying for her first degree.

Not only is she disabled but she has additional costs due to one of her health conditions and she’s also doing a very full on PG course while trying to manage her health. So no, she couldn’t work.

DS took the loan to cover tuition fees.
He was able to work in holidays each year to save £4000 which he then split to give himself £400 a month or £100 a week for food, gym, laundry, social etc.
We had saved enough to cover his accommodation of £850 a month but if we hadn't I guess it would have been the min maintenance loan and a £400/500 expect top up from us.

I think they’re just making contracts start in June/july rather than Sept.

There’s tons of jobs out there. Most university cities are awash with bars and restaurants.

Thing is @planespotter71 firstly plenty of unis are in smaller places, either not cities or smaller ones, which don't have lots of job ops (Lboro, Keele, Lancaster, Aber, Cambridge, Warwick, St Andrew's, Bangor, Bath) and secondly, even in big cities like Brum and Leeds and Manchester, there are lots of students (many bigger cities have multiple unis) chasing those jobs. DS has been able to get a couple of jobs relating to his sporting hobby but lots of ppl he knows cannot get anything even in hospitality. I think its a good idea for students to work, for all kinds of reasons, but it's not always that easy.

The system is based on parents making up the loan to the maximum level so that is the bare minimum that should be paid

If she can blow money and choose an expensive university she will have to earn money and learn what responsibility is.
One way to go. She needs to grow up.

Yes, as parents we support our children but most of us had jobs and did with very little money then we went to university. Been there.

Think you need to explain to her that you expected she woukd go a yr later, therefore you would have had time to save. Work out what you can afford. She will need to get a job. Don't give her so.much that life is grim for u at home. You will be resentful. Has she got any savings?

We paid the rent, they got minimum
loan and worked in the holidays. The loan goes nowhere near the rent!

Yes, i frequently see people on the Manchester Reddit page saying how they’re struggling to get any sort of job. Retail, cafes, etc. not just students but locals who on paper are more attractive as they have more flexibility and availability than students.

Someone said a minimum wage barista job was asking for 4 years experience.

A friend’s student son applied for 94 jobs before he got one working at a pub. He’s polite, intelligent and would interview well but don’t think he even heard back from 99% of the ones he applied for.

No it isn't easy - but at my childrens' university the students with less money send from parents had a job faster than the children with more money send from parents.
The less money from home students also worked more in the holidays than the children from more privileged families. They did more travel and more music festivals.